Elmer John
Negy, (later known as “Colonel Jack E. Negy”), was born May 4, 1891 in
Felsőnyárád, Hungary. He was a son of Ferencz “Frank” Négy and
Miczike “Mary” (Grossman) Nagy (anglicized from the original Hungarian of
Négy Ferenc and Grossman Mária). He immigrated to America, arriving in
Baltimore, Maryland with an uncle, Lajos “Louis” Grossman (1860-1951), on
October 15, 1908 from Hanover, Germany. Elmer Negy arrived with $6 in his
pocket and lived first with his Uncle Louis at Belle Plaine, Iowa. He
joined the United States Regular Army on December 29, 1910 as a “jockey” since
he had actually been recruited to play polo on an inter-regimental polo
team. He served three years in the 13th Calvary chasing Poncho
Villa and other outlaws along the Mexican border, when he wasn’t playing
polo. He was discharged from the service with the rank of second
lieutenant on December 28, 1913 at Columbus, New Mexico.

Negy was married to
Anna Sophia Kristensen (1897-1952) in April of 1914 in Manhattan, Kansas where
his new father-in-law, Niels Christian Abel Kristensen (1858-1926), purchased
the Golden Belt Garage at 117 North Third Street for Negy to operate.
Negy changed the name of the garage to the Blue Valley Garage and the new
business became a distributor for Buick and Allen automobiles.

In 1916, Elmer and Anna
were the parents of Irene Mary Negy (1916-1959), and were residing in
Hutchinson, Kansas where he was working as a salesman selling Hudson
automobiles for the Hutchinson Motor Car Company.

On March 15, 1916,
Frank Fretzer of Hoisington, Kansas became the first man to accept a challenge
from Elmer Negy for a race between Fretzer’s Buick Model 16 and a new Hudson
“Super-Six” owned by the Hutchinson Motor Car Company. The event was
staged “on the Ellinwood (Kansas) road” and drew a large crowd of auto
enthusiasts. The race was run over a one-mile section of straightway from
a flying start in single file with the Buick in the lead. Negy passed
Fretzer in less than a quarter-mile and then pulled away leaving the Buick far
behind. Negy then offered Fretzer a rematch that would give Fretzer a
quarter-mile head start. Fretzer excepted the terms and the cars raced
again over the same one-mile section of road. Even with the handicap,
Negy was able to win that race too, much to the delight of the interested
onlookers. [Note:It now appears that the two races
between the Buick and the Hudson were a staged event and that “Frank Fretzer”
was actually J. E. Frazier; originally from Coats, Kansas, who was in the
process of opening an automobile agency in Pratt, Kansas.]

After Negy had won the
two races against Fretzer, Victor Krebaum (1891-1918) of Great Bend, Kansas,
challenged Negy to a race between his motorcycle and the Hudson “Super-Six”; a
contest that Negy won easily.

Later in March of 1916,
Negy challenged the Cochran & Beck Studebaker agency of Dodge City, Kansas
to a race against a Hudson “Super-Six” he was driving with one of their
Studebaker 6 automobiles saying that he could beat the Studebaker up the Spruce
Street hill in Dodge City. The agency declined the challenge saying that
a Studebaker was not a “speed car”, but that they would except any such
challenge Negy might propose that was not a “speed race.” Their counter
offer was to race Negy up the Spruce Street hill from a standing start from the
Lum Street corner, with five men as passengers in each car, with both cars
going the whole distance in high gear and each making a complete circle in the
street halfway up the hill. Negy excepted their proposal. The name
of the Studebaker driver was not recorded but, under the agreed to terms, the
Studebaker 6 won the contest. Thinking the contest would be a shoe-in for
the Hudson “Super-Six”, Negy pointed out that the Hudson needed a tune-up so it
was arranged for the same two cars to rerun the contest the following
day. The Hudson was tuned up but for the contest that day but the results
were the same.

In April of 1916, Negy
was demonstrating a Hudson “Super-Six” in Saint John, Kansas when another
automobile dealer challenged him to a two-block race through town for a side
bet of $15. The Hudson Negy was driving, finished the course before the
challenger could even go one block so Negy collected his money only to be
arrested on the spot for speeding. The fine, with court costs, was $59
leaving Negy to wonder if his being able to demonstrate the Hudson before the
large crowd that had gathered to watch the competition, was worth his $44 net
loss. The race did land him a new position as a “daredevil demonstrator
driver for the Hudson Motor Car Company”.

This photo of
Elmer Negy was taken in a Hudson “Super-Six” on September 4, 1916 in front of
the Hutchinson Motor Company in Hutchinson, Kansas, commemorating his record
run from Hutchinson, Kansas to Pueblo, Colorado in the car on August 23,
1916. On the side of the car is painted:Won the WORLD’S RECORD

at 400-mile
cross country course

HUTCHINSON to
PUEBLO

9 HOURS, 20
MINURES

Hutchinson News photo

August,
1916 – Hill
climb up Buck
Hill
near Pratt,
Kansas

Car:
Hudson “Skuper-Six” owned by the Hutchinson Motor Car Company of Hutchinson,
Kansas

Finish: Negy,
with five passengers, beat a Studebaker “Six” with only its driver on board.

In another
demonstration, the Hutchinson
Newsreported that Negy was
able to drive a Hudson “Super-Six”, with three passengers on board, from
Wichita, Kansas to Pueblo, Colorado (about 400 miles) in a new record time of 9
hours, 20 minutes on August 23, 1916. Negy broke the old record for that
distance on public roads, that had reportedly been held by Edwin George
“Cannonball” Baker (1882-1960).

On September 13, 1916,
Negy, along with three passengers, made the trip from Kinsley, Kansas to
Larned, Kansas in a Hudson “Super-Six” in 28 minutes, beating the local Santa
Fe train by several minutes.

In March of 1917, Negy
drove a red
Hudson “Super-Six” roadster from Phillipsburg, Kansas to Salina, Kansas, covering 162
miles in three hours, twenty minutes.

Following are the
results of auto races that Elmer Negy is known to have competed in:

Finish:
A
Marmon 34, driven by Reuben E. “Rube” Arnold (1878-1956), an auto dealer from
Wichita, Kansas, had a head start but Negy caught him and passed him by going
into the bar ditch along the side of the 2-lane road. The pass showered
the Marmon with dust so Negy backed off and let the Marmon pass. He then
passed the Marmon again, reaching a speed of 80 m.p.h. and, as he pulled
away, Mr. Arnold waved farewell and gave up the race.

Finish: Negy placed 2nd
once and 3rd twice in these races. It is known that he placed
3rd in the final 90-mile race behind Glenn Breed
(1880-1960) of Salina, Kansas and Jake Strickler(1902-1966)
of Enid, Oklahoma who was also driving a Hudson “Super-Six”. Which races
Negy placed in besides the final event, has yet to be learned. Negy
donated all of his share of the purse to the Red Cross.

Feature Race Winner: Glenn M. Breed of Salina,
Kansas, driving his own Hudson “Super-Six” #1, won all of these races.

Finish: Negy won $100 by
placing 1st in a 5-mile match race over ½ lap ahead of Merle Johnson
who was driving a 6-cyllinder Buick. Negy’s time for the distance was
7:40.0 and he donated his share of the purse to the Red Cross. After Negy
won the match race, he was challenged to another match race over the same
distance by Lenard
E. Kerbs (1895-1960) of Otis, Kansas who was driving a 16-valve Fronty
Ford. Negy pointed out that Kerbs’ automobile was not stock and declined
the challenge, so Kerbs ran his Fronty Ford for 5-miles against time, covering
the distance in 6:39.0.

Finish: Negy’s Essex was
the only stock car entered in these races so he ran exhibition laps for the
assembled crowd of spectators. He first ran ½-mile from a standing start
in 45.0 seconds. He then ran 1-mile from a flying start in 1:25.0 and
then 5-miles in 6:52.4 from a standing start.

Finish: Dr. Virgil O.
Standish, Sr. (1883-1975) of the Standish Motor Sales Company of Larned, put up
$1,000 on September 25, 1919 offering to race any brand automobile that was
sold in Pawnee County, Kansas in the next two-weeks that would post a matching
$1,000 in a winner-take-all event. Negy initially except the challenge
but then backed out one week later saying that the Hudson Motor Company would
not back such a wager. When Negy announced that he could not cover the
wager, Dr. Standish withdrew his offer so the race did not take place.

Finish: It is known that Negy
attended these races but it is not certain that he entered them. When the
local newspaper went to press the day before these races, he had not and his
name does not appear in the race results.

Finish: Lloyd Irven Lambert
(1899-1967) of Pratt, took Negy up on his challenge that he (Negy) would pay
$100 in gold to anyone with a stock car that could beat him in a 5-mile match
race from a standing start. Lambert’s Buick roadster had been stripped of
everything that could be taken off of it and he got Johnny
Mais, a professional race driver from Salina, Kansas, to drive the
Buick for him in the race against Negy. The two cars ran a time trial
with Negy turning in the fastest time which he felt should earn him the pole
position in the match race. Mais complained that no time trial had been
mentioned in advertising for the race so he felt that the pole position in the
match race should be determined by a coin toss. Negy won the coin toss and
started the race on the pole. Mais pulled ahead at first and let the
first three miles but about 100 yards. Negy then began to gain on the
Buick and won the race by half a lap.

November
25, 1919 – 2-miles of straight 2-lane road then known as Rock Roadlater known asCowley County Road 27beginning south of
Strother
Field
where the road turns east to Winfield, Kansas and proceeding south past Memorial Lawn
Cemetery,
ending at the Martha
Washington School
–north of Arkansas City,
Kansas

January 28, 1920 – 5-miles on Iuka road
from the corner of the Joe Helsel Farm to the Section Linenorthof Iuka, Kansas

Car: 4-cyllinder
Essex roadster

Finish: Negy
only ran against time and completed the distance in 4:50.0.

Hutchinson News

April 5, 1920 –
Page 10

In January of 1920, Negy drove a new red and green Essex demonstrator to Pratt,
Kansas; Wellington, Kansas and Arkansas City, Kansas, placing the automobile on
display at a local Motor Inn in each city. Besides its eye-catching paint
scheme, the car sported every option that Essex offered on new cars plus a hood
which had the panels on its top and sides replaced with glass to allow for
better viewing of the engine while it was running. The car drew large
crowds of onlookers wherever it went.

Negy became the
authorized dealer for Haynes automobiles in central and western Kansas in March
of 1920, building agencies in both Hutchinson and Great Bend, Kansas:

“Until October 1, 1920,
we will (be) located at 28 South Walnut. We have taken a long-time lease
and will occupy after October 1, the present spacious quarters of The
Hutchinson Motor Car Company at the Southeast corner of Sherman and Walnut” –
Hutchinson News, April 5, 1920, page 10.

Finish: Negy
ran the 5th fastest 2-laps in time trials in 1:17.50. Only the
times of Leonard
Kerbs of Otis, Kansas driving a Ford; Johnny Mais
(1888-1961) of Salina, Kansas driving an Essex; Fred
S. Lentz (1885-1952) of Hutchinson driving a Mercer chassis with a Hudson
engine and Jake
Strickler of Enid, Oklahoma driving a Hudson, were faster.

3rd
in the heat race for the fastest half of the cars from time trials, finishing
behind Johnny
Mais in an Essex and Fred
Lentz in a Mercer chassis with a Hudson engine.

2nd
in the 5-car, 30-lap “free-for-all” behind Johnny Mais
who was driving an Essex.

Feature
Race Winner: Johnny Mais of Salina, Kansas
who was driving an Essex.

Finish: Negy ran the 5th
fastest 2-laps in time trials in 1:17.2. Only the times of John Boyd of
Oklahoma City driving a Hudson special; Lou Scheibell (1887-1926) of Des
Moines, Iowa driving a Chalmers; Harry Dickson driving a Packard and Fred
Lentz of Hutchinson driving a Hudson, were faster.

Negy won the 2nd 3-car heat race in 3:58.0 over Fred
Lentz in a Hudson and Jeff Crafford in a Ford. All three drivers
were from Hutchinson.

Feature Race
Winner: John
Boyd of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma who was driving a Hudson special. It was
announced at the races that the Hudson special that Boyd was driving, cost an
“Oklahoma Cherokee Indian oil millionaire” $32,000 but that claim was untrue.

Finish: Negy ran the 9th
fastest 2-laps in time trials in 1:17.0. The times turned in by John Boyd
of Oklahoma City driving a Hudson special; Fred Rogers of Ponca City, Oklahoma
driving a Dodge; Harry Dickson driving a Packard; Lou Scheibell
of Des Moines, Iowa driving a Chalmers; Tuck Fordyce
(1887-1945) of Hutchinson driving a Mercer; Fred
Lentz of Hutchinson driving a Hudson; Earl Roberts (1894-1976) of
Hutchinson driving a Studebaker and Jeff Crafford of Hutchinson driving a Ford,
were faster.

Feature Race
Winner: John
Boyd of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma who was driving a Hudson special. It was
announced at the races that the Hudson special that Boyd was driving, cost an
“Oklahoma Cherokee Indian oil millionaire” $32,000 but that claim was untrue.

Going into the 1st corner on a false start (the starter did not
display the green flag), Negy crowded “Toots” Higgins’
Hudson special and the two cars made contact causing Higgins to crash through
the inside fence into the infield. Higgins’ Hudson suffered a smashed
radiator and was damaged too badly to restart the race. A rear wheel was
torn off of Negy’s Haynes and he was disqualified for his crowding
maneuver. With only two cars being able to restart the race, it was
canceled and those two cars were added to the next match race’s lineup.

Feature Race Winner: No feature race
was run due to a lack of both entries and of paying spectators.

In November of 1920,
Negy, along with partners Charles S. Fulton (1881-1940) and Frank Sutton
(1880-?), all being from Hutchinson, were granted a charter by the state of
Kansas to operate the Southwestern Motor Company in Hutchinson.

Late in November of
1920, Negy was delivering a new Essex touring car to a customer in Great Bend,
Kansas who had purchased it, when the vacuum tank exploded 2-miles east of
Nickerson, Kansas. Negy was slightly singed in the accident but the new
Essex was completely destroyed in the resultant fire.

Elmer and Anna Negy
divorced in 1921. Elmer then married Myrtle Dickie (1896-1986) in
Abilene, Texas in 1923. They became the parents of Barbara Kate Negy
(1924-1975), Nancy Negy (1927-1927) and Anna Dickie Negy (1929-2004) but Elmer
and Myrtle divorced shortly after daughter Anna’s birth. Elmer soon
married Ethel June (Potter) Comley (1885-1937), who was the divorced wife of a
Wichita lumberman, but Myrtle Negy sued Ethel in Denver, Colorado for $100,000
for alienation of affection. Elmer and Ethel Negy divorced in October of
1930, remarried later that same year but separated again just 12 days after
that. They divorced again in 1932. Again, they remarried only to
divorce in 1933. This time, Ethel charged Elmer with cruelty and
non-support. In turn, Elmer sued Ethel’s mother, Margaret Nancy “Maggie”
Potter (1858-1952), for $150,000 for alienation of affection. Elmer and
Myrtle (Dickie) Negy were eventually remarried. Elmer married Katie Lou
(Hollandsworth) Harris (1905-1982) in 1937 in Memphis, Tennessee but that
marriage was not legal as his last divorce from Myrtle did not become final
until 1940, so Elmer was married to Katie again in 1948, again in Memphis.

Elmer Negy filed for
bankruptcy in federal court in Wichita, Kansas in 1922 and then moved to Texas
where he became the Wholesale Manager for the Nash-McLarty Motor Company.

On September 25, 1922,
with Dallas County Undersheriff A. A. Love and a reporter from the Dallas News on board, Negy drove
178 miles from Dallas, Texas to Gainesville, Texas in 3 hours and 4 minutes of
actual running time in a 1923 Nash “Six”.

On October 5, 1922,
Negy “put a 1923 Nash through its paces over some of the roughest roads to be
found in Tarrant County, Texas”. The run was “officially certified
through three of the five passengers including Police Commissioner John
Alderman and George Kelly of The Star-Telegram staff, the former
acting as observer and the latter as official timekeeper…”

Around October 1, 1923,
Negy drove local Nash dealer Clyde Ragland and a “host of Avalanche representatives” from Lubbock,
Texas to Post City, Texas in a Nash, making the 104-mile round trip in 1 hour
and 55 minutes.

Negy became the Ford
automobile dealer in Woodson and Throckmorton, Texas and, in February of 1928,
he, “drove a standard new Ford Sport Coupe” from Throckmorton to Albany, Texas,
with “Judge Owen” as passenger. In doing so, they traveled the 40 miles
in 40 minutes.

The March 22, 1928
issue of The
Rockdale (Texas) Messenger reported that Negy “drove his Ford Model ‘A’ demonstrator
40 miles in 37 minutes recently over dirt roads with many curves, hills and
creeks. After this rigid test, the radiator was only slightly warm.”

In 1933, Negy moved to
Cheyenne, Wyoming and then had moved on to Houston, Texas by 1935. It was
around this time that he began calling himself “Jack E. Negy”. He was
residing in Dallas, Texas in 1940 and assumed the honorary title of “Colonel”
Jack E. Negy around that time. In 1942, he was employed by the Triangle
Conduit & Cable Company in Dallas, Texas.

By 1964, the Negys had
moved to Golden Beach, Florida where he went into the banking business with
another former automobile dealer, Jacques Mossler. Mossler was found murdered
later that same year. The Negy’s remained in Florida for a few
more years before they returned to San Antonio, Texas where Jack Negy again
went into the banking business, joining the Groos Bank of San Antonio.